“This large work depicts one of my favorite spots in Washington State, the western most point in the continental United States. Standing on this cliff and experiencing this landscape always brings me to tears. For this painting I started with an atmospheric lavender imprimatura and imbued the entire palette with that hue. I have been working more with palette knifes lately and I’m enjoying the heavy slabs of color and expressive marks they afford.”
Thanks to everyone for the incredible response to this painting, and thanks to Carrie Goller and the Carrie Goller Gallery for their representation and promotion of my work. I don’t think that I have ever posted a painting that had this kind of effusive and viseral reaction. I’m working on another interpretation of this scene and will have it to the gallery in Poulsbo, hopefully, in two weeks.
With every painting I give myself a challenge, a problem to solve. With this one I wanted to make a very soft, atmospheric painting but to use, primarily, palette knives and heavy slabs of paint instead of brushes and a softer application of paint. It is a bit like playing a tender piano concerto with metal hooks. I accomplished my goal, and learned a lot. I focused on creating the atmospheric perspective by paying close attention to values, working in a Tonalist palette as I usually do. A deep lavender-violet was my dominant hue, mixed into every color in the painting, even the white. Plain white looks glaring yellow in that field of soft violet.
The scene is full of linear perspective as well as intense atmospheric perspective I think it is probably the most 3-D painting I have ever made—as far as carving out space and punching a hole in the wall.
